Posted on 03/06/2004 7:54:32 AM PST by Scenic Sounds
The brewing controversy over gay marriage comes complete with the high drama of a political Ping-Pong match. It's as if everything we learned in high school civics is coming to life before our eyes.
First, Vermont allowed civil unions for gay couples and the top court in Massachusetts went one better by ordering the Legislature to legalize gay marriages. That led Republicans in Congress to draft a federal constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. Then San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom forced the issue by instructing city officials to hand out marriage licenses to gay couples. And that pushed President Bush to declare his support for a constitutional amendment.
Now another mayor has jumped into the fray. Jason West of New Paltz, N.Y., has been charged with 19 counts of solemnizing marriages of same-sex couples. West said that he was acting in line with the state constitution, which bans discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. If convicted, West faces a maximum penalty of a $500 fine or a year in jail. But the mayor vows to perform more gay weddings.
In Oregon, meanwhile, the attorney for Multnomah County – which includes Portland – has issued a legal opinion that would allow marriage licenses for same-sex couples. The Board of County Commissioners has issued a statement declaring its support for a change in existing policy.
This is really good stuff. Each turn of events breathes new life into some old and familiar questions.
By what authority does the federal government impose its will on the states? Do localities intent on defying federal mandates have a leg to stand on, or do the feds always get the last word?
As individual states grapple with difficult and controversial issues – whether gay marriage or an end to Jim Crow laws – should it be expected that each state will come along at its own pace? Or should the preferred goal be to push for an across-the-board decree from Washington?
And when decrees do come, must they come only from elected officials or can they come from the courts, where judges – particularly those who don't have to stand for election – are sometimes better equipped than politicians to make decisions that are morally courageous? That, after all, is the whole point of judicial review.
President Bush says he wants to keep power in the hands of elected officials, bemoaning the intervention of what he calls "activist judges." The president and those who share his view seem to resent that judges are in a position to advance social agendas without having to go before voters for approval.
They got it backward. It's precisely because many of these judges don't have to stand before voters that they can advance the agenda of social justice.
Let's hear it for activist judges. Without the third branch of government, we wouldn't have some of the greatest and most important victories of the civil rights movement. Without activist judges, Linda Brown would never have been allowed to go to school with white children, James Meredith would never have made it into the University of Mississippi, and George Wallace would have been able to stop integration cold when the governor made his stand in the doorway to prevent the enrollment of black students at the University of Alabama.
During the civil rights movement, elected officials in the old South – in case after case – made the wrong decisions, and so the courts had to make the right ones. The courts led, and soon other institutions followed.
And so it might be with the issue of gay marriage. When it is all said and done, a story that began with a decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court could end with the complete transformation of one of our most beloved social customs.
The least the rest of America can do is apply to this social revolution the lessons it learned from the last one.
My generation has never seen anything like this. Born 11 months before the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., I've often felt as though I missed out on some really good history. Now my generational cohorts and I are getting a chance to watch history in the making.
(Excerpt) Read more at signonsandiego.com ...
I'd rather not, if'n ye don't mind.
I'd say that Mississippi looks pretty safe.
At least, for now. At least, maybe. ;-)
| What We Can Do To Help Defeat the "Gay" Agenda ( www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1076476/posts ) |
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| Homosexual Agenda: Categorical Index of Links (Version 1.1) ( www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1026551/posts ) |
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| The Stamp of Normality ( www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1085090/posts ) |
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